1055: An Angry Interrogation
In front of Fran was a ranting admiral along with a knight and a mage, both trembling. First we need to restrain them.
The two in the back would probably obey an order to surrender, but we’ll need to use force on the admiral.
Unfortunately for them, it seems Fran’s rage was far from satisfied, even after all her earlier violence. Rather than making an attempt to talk, she simply swung her blade without any offer of surrender.
「「「 GYAAAAAHH! 」」」
『Eh? Hold up. Fran?』
（They need to understand the hierarchy first.）
Fran seemed to have no intention of conducting a normal interrogation. The pitiful screams of the three men echoed across the deck of the Water Dragon Battleship, having lost their knees and everything below them. Fran, however, questioned them with batting an eyelash.
「Are you from Raydoss?」
「HYAAAAH! Ah! Ah! It hurts! S-Somebody! Save me!」
「Argh! D-Damn! I-I couldn’t even react!」
「Ahhh! Why am I in this mess?」
I don’t think they’re in any condition to listen right now…
But Fran was relentless.
She splashed the three with water magic, and before giving them a light dose of intimidation. Then she spoke again with a cold stare.
「Are you from Raydoss? Answer me.」
「S-Silence, silence, silence! D-Don’t think you can get away with this! I’ll make you pay!」
「Hmph.」
「GEH!」
「GWAH!」
「GAAAH! W-Why us too…?!」
「Joint liability.」
The three men all gasped for breath after taking a wind blast to their stomachs. Fran’s simmering rage was now readily apparent.
「I-I am merely a mage hired to escort the fleet! I-I know nothing about the inner workings of our nation!」
「But you just said something about the Chancellor.」
「Wha-! You overheard…!」
「The Chancellor is important? Then you must be important enough to talk to him. Don’t play dumb with me.」
「GYAAAH!」
「Lying will only bring you more pain.」
Fran kicked the mage’s open wounds, resulting in the grown man screaming with tears due to the pain. His heart had been completely broken.
While the mage’s eyes were dead, the fat admiral continued glaring at us with hostility.
Though a fool, he was still over level 30. This was no power leveling either, he had the strength to match.
It seems that gave him more resistance to pain than the mage. Well, not like he could do anything to Fran though.
Admiral wasn’t a direct combat class in the first place, so his stats were pretty low.
「D-Damn you! You lowly adventurers――GYAAAAAHHH!」
Fran approached the admiral who was about to start another rant and stomped down on what remained of the man’s severed leg.
The Admiral twisted his body in an attempt to escape, but his resistance proved futile against Fran’s overwhelming power. He only managed to tear his wounds open further and amplify his own pain.
「――Argh…!!」
「Are you from Raydoss?」
After repeating the same question three times, the knight finally answered. He must have realized that answering was their only chance for survival.
「Y-Yes, we are. I-I’ll tell you everything! So please don’t kill――GYAH!」
「You speak only when asked.」
「O-Okay! I know already, so stop hitting me!」
「Stop hitting me?」
「I mean please spare me, I’m begging you!」
「Hmph.」
Now the knight’s heart was completely broken too, his eyes dominated by pure terror. He trembled at Fran’s slightest movement.
Upon seeing the knight’s face drenched in saliva and tears, the half-dead admiral finally settled down. He now understood that his life was in the hands of the pissed off girl in front of him.
The conversation that followed went very smoothly.
As expected, this fleet served the Kingdom of Raydoss, with half of the ships and personnel coming from the Kingdom of Seedran. Raydoss had taken over Seedran with some sort of plot, and illegally enslaved the rebellious citizens, soldiers, and even royalty to use as disposable forces.
The enhanced ward on the Water Dragon Battleship was the result of modification by the Raydoss alchemists, as well as the effect of Marle’s skills.
The damage transfer phenomenon was also due to her skills. Admiral-type classes apparently had several skills which could be applied to ships in various ways.
Coincidentally, the fat guy in front of us had the “Stealth Admiral” class, which applies a cloaking effect to the fleet under his control. That must be how he reached Bulbora undetected.
Despite his appearance, he was one of the top brass in the West Conquest Duke’s navy. He apparently participated in the operation to cause a civil war in Seedran, leading to their conquest.
And as for what happened to Marle, they only knew a little.
Her demonoid surgery implanted the magic stone of a spirit-like monster known as a Sea Fairy. Then, she underwent a different surgery to implant the horns of a mutated ogre, and transform her into a super soldier.
Human augmentation was still an experimental technology, so it apparently causes mental instability in those undergoing the procedure. That’s probably why they forced her to obey with a slave collar.
Things must have worked up until her magic stone instability and bodily mutation progressed too far, causing the slave collar to cease functioning.
「Hmph.」
「Gah! W-Why…?」
Fran must have gotten pissed at the pig-like admiral’s proud explanation of Marle’s surgery and Raydoss’s advanced technology. He was stunned when Fran suddenly punched him in the face.
「I felt like it.」
「…!」
Okay, we learned what happened to Marle. Now why did they target Bulbora?
Their reasons turned out to be exactly what I was expecting.
Raydoss intended to invade Kranzel and end the long-standing feud between the two kingdoms. The strategy was to conquer Bulbora and establish a bridgehead there.
Kranzel should have their own navy, but they were apparently defeated in a naval battle near the port town of Dars and left in tatters. Well, I imagine they stood no chance against the Water Dragon Battleship.
Bulbora was their main target due to being a large port distant from Raydoss, which made them less vigilant against foreign invasion. Also, the security was still in disarray due to the incident about a year ago. An additional reason was that conquering Seedran allowed them to interfere with Kranzel’s supply routes more easily.
We ran into Raydoss warships on our way back from Gordicia for a similar reason.
The only difference being those ships had the mission of harassing Belioth’s logistics rather than Kranzel’s. That’s because the terms of the Gordician Duty contract prevented them from attacking Belioth directly.
Thus, they took military actions against the trading ports of countries exporting food to Belioth, allowing them to hurt Belioth indirectly.
Furthermore, conquering their neighboring countries would ramp up the pressure on Belioth too.
Then they would strike as soon as the Gordician Duty safety period ended. It seems these plans had already been propagated to all of Raydoss’s allies, with the operation already well underway.
We also managed to get more detailed information about Raydoss’s inner workings.
I already heard the rumor about Raydoss’s recent change of king, allowing the dukes of the North, South, East, and West to do as they pleased.
The current war was said to be led by the East and South Conquest Dukes, with the West Conquest Duke backing them up. Each of the dukes had their own goal.
The East was after Belioth, the West after Phyllius, and South after our current location, the Kingdom of Kranzel.
Well, the fleet we just eliminated seemed to work for the West Duke though. The South Duke wanted to grab everyone’s attention by invading Kranzel’s northern border while the West Duke invaded Bulbora in the southwest.
If Kranzel decided to allocate reinforcements to Bulbora, this would thin their numbers and allow the South Duke to gain an advantage on the northern front. No matter what Kranzel did in response, this plot would give Raydoss the advantage, or at least that’s how it should have been.
『Sucks that they ran into us then.』
（Nn.）
With Raydoss invading from the north, the powerful adventurers rushed north to stop them. Adventurers are not obliged to participate in wars, but it’s a different story when Raydoss is the aggressor.
After all, Raydoss has always cracked down hard on adventurers. Kranzel losing the war would mean a drastic change in their livelihoods.
It’s not like every single adventurer headed north, but their numbers almost certainly decreased drastically. Marle was assigned to deal with the few that remained.
With her combat ability, she should be more than a match for any Rank B adventurer. Her victory was practically guaranteed with the Raydoss fleet backing her up. She might even be able to handle Rank A adventurers in her berserk state too. Well, assuming they fought near a body of water.
Their fleet, including the Water Dragon Battleship, was to thoroughly crush Bulbora. Then, Marle would lead the landing forces to overrun Bulbora in one fell swoop. That was Raydoss’s plan, but it seems we interfered right before they could land.
Anyway, that’s pretty much everything I wanted to hear.
『Fran, let’s turn these guys over to Bulbora.』
（…Nn.）
Fran seems to have calmed down after torturing them for a bit. She used healing magic to stop their bleeding.
Judging by her previous behavior, I almost expected her to simply off them when she was done.
I wrapped them up with some magic thread to restrain them. Fran held onto the other side of the thread, and all three had yet to regenerate their legs. Escape was impossible.
After taking a look around, I saw pretty much all of Raydoss’s ships had sunk aside from the Water Dragon Battleship. Those still floating had been rendered incapable of sailing. Some floating ships waved the Seedran flag, but their masts and oars were already broken.
Perhaps they could still move using magic tools, but it seems they didn’t have the courage to escape with a huge wolf watching them.
『Urushi, we’re heading to Bulbora. Keep an eye on the fleet.』
「You can sink any ship that runs!」
「Woof!」
Fran shouted that in her loudest voice to ensure the remaining boats heard her words. A few screams followed after Urushi’s reply.
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